Aw, Grace, early recovery is so freakin' frustrating. The worst part is that it's still so very vague... it's not like you have a clear-cut promise that once you ride out THIS part of the storm, you'll actually get to your Happily Ever After.
AH & I could NOT communicate in the first 90 days of his recovery. At all. All we did was increase frustration on both sides. We both felt justified & wounded & couldn't even identify all the hurts yet. I thought I was in hell.... I just couldn't see where it was all going.
I've learned SO MUCH by reading here. Not just about my own needs & issues, or even what might be happening inside his head. Information on the physiological changes recovering A's go through & how long it takes for those things to happen blew my mind. I had no clue about a lot of the fine details & once I did it helped my perspective. (No excuses for him or his behavior, but it helped me gauge whether I was setting unrealistic expectations sometimes. I found that very helpful.)
Keep reading, lurk over in the Alcoholism forum sometimes & just objectively read some of the posts. Go back anytime & read my old posts.... I've talked about this issue a few times & feel like I shared a lot more than I have time for here right now. I didn't join this forum until my husband was nearly a year sober, so all of my posts are during the time after he quit actively drinking until now. (He's 15 months sober)
You were right when you said it's like you're speaking 2 different languages. You kinda are. I also felt the same way about separating.... sometimes you just crave some distance from each other to process what you're going through.
